What does Self-Sufficient Mean?
Not relying on anyone or anything for your livelihood. It’s subjective, obviously, everyone has varied needs and being able to provide for those needs yourself (or within your community) is key.
How do You Become Self-Sufficient?
Start in that direction and just keep moving. How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. So start small, identify things you can start doing immediately. Reducing your dependence on eating out, slow your frequency of ordering online or making at trip to the grocery store. Learn things you don’t know, or meet people who do. For instance, I have learned to raise chickens and process them (kill, defeather, cut up, vacuum seal and freeze). YouTube is a game-changer for the world we live in. And through this process, and just showing up and taking steps in the ‘direction’ of self-sufficiency, I have met others who can help me with things I don’t want to do, like raise cows.
Why Would You Want to be Self-Sufficient?
Self-sufficiency means… not teetering on the brink of high-gas prices and empty grocery store shelves. We are living in very interesting times. The high prices are getting higher and the world seems to be becoming polarizing. I don’t like to focus on the bad things in the world, so I just want to focus on being abundant in my life with food, energy, water, and love.
Here are some steps I’ve taken
I built a tire wall, which is an Earthship concept, which I really enjoyed but was a lot of work. I did two videos on that here and lessons learned.
This is my herb spiral with my dog Buckeye. This year I planted a dozen or so herbs (and have since dried a bunch and harvested seeds). 
I also set up rain water harvesting to water all of my gardens.
I planted fruit tree guilds to have more long-term food production. Here’s a sketch of my apple tree guild:
I planted an apple tree guild, a second apple tree and a peach tree guild this summer.
I also got certified in permaculture design to more fully understand building a farm and home in harmony with nature. See my project here which is my first homestead (2020-2021) which is where all these photos are from.
I learned how to raise chickens, egg layers and meat chickens and this spring I am planning to incubate and hatch baby chicks also.
I also learned how to process chickens…
I did seed starting for hundreds of plants (tomatoes, lettuces, herbs, and more). I transplanted them into my garden and had both a kitchen garden and a ‘pantry’ garden.
I worked at a plant farm, which is like a garden/nursery but they just grow the plants and sell them for planting.
Much love and Namaste,
Amy